1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an active special contact, in particular for insertion into hybrid connectors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
So-called special contacts for strip-shaped plug connectors are already known. Strip-shaped or elongated plug connectors are generally formed by a blade strip and a spring strip. These strips or contact inserts may include holes to seat the special contacts in the spring and blade strips. Hybrid connectors generally have a contact insert in which signal contacts are included together with contacts for power, coax or optical fibers.
Of course, there are again two kinds of hybrid contact inserts interacting with each other, namely a blade insert strip and a spring insert strip. When using such a hybrid contact insert, e.g. a blade insert strip, in conjunction with a printed circuit board, the connecting arms of the contact blades are soldered into the circuit board (or any other component). If, for example, an optical special contact is inserted in the blade insert strip, it communicates with an opto-electronic component e.g. on the circuit board via a light waveguide. The light waveguide terminates in the special contact. When introducing the associated spring insert strip into the blade strip, a light waveguide present in the spring strip needs to be brought into alignment with the light waveguide of the blade strip, thus establishing a connection.
It would be desirable to provide a special contact which alleviates the above problems.